


The Silver Rhythm Gang

by Pucca



Series: Lucky Lucy Of Fairy Tail [9]
Category: Fairy Tail, Groove Adventure RAVE | Rave Master
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Mashima Hiro's Fairy Tail Setting, And I do mean hinted there's maybe two sentence in there, Crossover, Gen, Hinted Nalu, It's not very realistic in some parts but neither is fairy tail, More of Lucy's Backstory is Revealed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-23
Packaged: 2020-07-11 23:18:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19936159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pucca/pseuds/Pucca
Summary: A guy named Musica comes looking for Lucy one day while she’s out on a mission and Fairy Tail finds out some surprising information about their resident pacifist.





	The Silver Rhythm Gang

**Author's Note:**

> It's been....nearly a year since I updated. Wow how time flies but also I am so sorry! Also I have a question for ya'll, would you rather I continue uploading the series like this? Little one shots in a series or post all the one shots in one place and update both as I go?
> 
> Also fun fact about this chapter: I originally wrote it to take place after Juvia and Gajeel join but than I realized that would make no sense in the over all world/plot I have for Lucy's backstory so I changed it. Two more chapters before the Phantom Hive Arc.

_Lucy has too many fucking secrets,_ Gray thought with a frown as he crossed his arms. Or as Lucy would have put it, _I never lied. I just never told you._

As far as Gray was concerned, a lie of omission was a lie all the same.

Lucy had been strangely quiet the last two and a half weeks. The usually cheerful and exuberant girl wasn’t quite silent, but she was _subdued_ _._ The girl who’s boundless energy easily rivaled anyone from Fairy Tail. He wondered what it said about them that they didn’t even notice until _Natsu_ had pointed it out. 

He wondered what it said about _Natsu,_ for him to have noticed first. 

_Squirrely,_ Natsu had used to describe her behavior when he bought it to the attention of the team. It was only when Natsu had pointed it out that Erza and Gray also started noticing her rather _squirrely_ behavior. She had left this morning on a mission without a word to anyone but Master. When they asked Master where she had gone, and how long she would be gone, he had simply shrugged and said, _However long it takes._

Now, Gray can’t help but wonder if her recent weirdness and sudden departure had something to do with the man that had thrown open the doors to the guild and loudly shouted her name. Judging by the look in his team’s eyes, their thoughts aren’t far off from his. 

“Who are you?” Natsu asked, almost growling, leaning so far forward in his seat he was close to toppling over.

“Who are _you?”_ The man parroted back, arms crossed and there was an arrogance in him that Gray didn’t like. 

_“You’re_ the one in _our_ guild,” Erza’s voice was like one of her blades, steely and cold, the threat plain as day. 

“I’m Musica,” the man finally said after a moment. His eyes flickered around the room and for a sliver of a second, doubt crept into his features before it was gone. Gray couldn’t fault him for his reaction, the guild was fiercely protective of their own and right than it was showing in every line of their bodies. You could taste the magic bubbling underneath their skin, the hint of a threat that promised pain. “And I’m looking for Lucy.”

“Why?” Gray’s voice was like a glacier, cold. Steady. Unyielding. Loke was tense at his side, usually playful posture suddenly as lethal as his magic.

“I need to speak to her,” Musica gave nothing away, the piercings above his eye glinting in the light. 

_“Why?”_ Cana repeated the question, a snarl in her voice and jarring soberness in her eyes.

Musica’s dark eyes went from Erza, to Gray, to Natsu, to Loke, to Cana, his eyes calculating as he thought over something. Finally his eyes landed on something above all of them. A small and silent, ominous figure who had been watching the entire thing unfold from the banister of the second floor. Musica’s eyes narrowed slightly at Master Makarov, “Tell Lucy I’m looking for her.”

Then he turned and walked out of the guild, acutely aware of the hard stares that followed his every step. 

_Looks like you found yourself some good people Lucy._

* * *

“—mean like when you fucking turned and ran like a damn coward?!” Lucy yelled, poking his chest with her finger, hard enough that Musica winced. 

“Dammit woman! How many times do I have to tell you that you don’t have the whole story?” Musica yelled back. 

“I have enough to know you _gutless rats_ abandoned me!” Lucy growled, glaring up at him with so much vitriol it was amazing he didn’t catch fire. Or, at least, that’s what Natsu thought. He had never seen Lucy look at someone with that much _disgust_ and _hatred_ before. 

Natsu didn’t mean to eavesdrop, he had been on his way to the guild when he caught Lucy’s scent with _that guy_ —Music, Musical, or something like that—and had raced over to her. He didn’t know how Lucy knew him, didn’t know their history but that didn’t matter. He knew Lucy well enough to know her strange behavior was linked to the sudden appearance of the man that had come looking for her, just mere hours after she had taken a mission without them, and without any word. 

Natsu skidded to a halt just as Lucy started laying into the man and something in Natsu told him to stop, to hide and listen. He had never been one to ignore his instincts. 

“And what were we supposed to do?” Musica hissed, eyes narrowed and flinty. “Get caught? Get arrested? Just because you got _careless?”_

“Except I _didn’t_ get careless because I _don’t_ get careless,” Lucy hissed back and her hand twitched towards the whip strapped to her hip. “I _told you,_ you had a leak but you didn’t _fucking listen!_ ”

 _“Me?_ Don’t you mean _we?”_ Musica leaned in and Natsu tensed, not liking how close the man was to Lucy. And he especially didn't like the way his eyes scanned Lucy up and down. 

“There is no _we,_ not _anymore._ Not since the Silver Rhythm Gang left me to _die,”_ and Natsu felt his magic react to his anger, eyes turning slitted and steam coming off him in waves. It was a good thing—or maybe not—that the two were too absorbed in their argument to notice the vicious magic power radiating less than fifty feet away. 

“Die? Aren't you being a tad dramatic,” Musica leaned back suddenly, his shoulders loose and his posture relaxed. It instantly put Lucy on guard, angry Musica she could handle. Annoyed Musica she could easily manipulate. Even after not seeing him for so many years, she could still read Musica like an open book. Calm Musica was something else though. Calm Musica was cold and calculating and so very, very smart. It was one of the reasons why she liked him so much when they first met. He smirked, a thin little thing that held amusement, “Besides, I see you never got rid of your mark.” 

Lucy tensed, gnashing her teeth and feeling her anger ricochet higher at the smug look on his face, her hand automatically going to cover her side. “That’s because I still haven’t figured out a way to get rid of your damn _brand.”_

Musica’s smirk feel off his face quickly and Lucy could feel his anger climbing again, but there was something else there too. Hurt. _Good,_ Lucy thought viciously. 

“Oh, _ho_ —so it’s a _brand_ now?” If one thing could be said about Musica, let it be this: he was a very skilled actor. He hid the hurt and anger quickly, under a guise of arrogance. “That’s not what you called it when you practically _begged_ us to—”

Musica never got to finish his sentence as he jumped back, narrowly avoiding getting his chest slashed open with a whip lined with wickedly sharp spikes. Natsu’s eyes widened from where he was, he had only ever seen Lucy start a fight once before. The last time was when Mirajane had taken her keys and threw them into the Magnolia river. Lucy was teased as the guild pacifist for a _reason._ She never started fights, she tried to talk through them, she got between the fighting individuals, and she solved them. She never _started_ them. 

_Who is this guy?_ Natsu wondered, eyes narrowing thoughtly. There were _very_ few people in the world who could rile up Lucy enough to get her to attack first. 

“Well that’s a bit extreme,” Musica was obviously trying to keep his composure and he was failing—quite miserably too. His eyes were wide and his breathing was coming out in small pants, Natsu could hear his heart beating erratically, but—curiously—there was no fear. He still had faith that Lucy wouldn’t actually hurt him, or that he was strong enough that she couldn’t touch him.

 _Idiot,_ Natsu smirked. Lucy was no explosive powerhouse like him or Erza or even the ice bastard, but it didn’t change that she was one of the top fighters in a guild full of top fighters. 

“Shut up,” Lucy growled, another twitch of her wrist and the whip responded like a second limb, flying towards it’s master’s target—dangerous and blood thirsty. _“Why are you here?_ ”

Natsu waited for the inevitable, that moment when Lucy’s whip would wrap around the man like a vice, the spikes biting into his skin and drawing blood. That moment never came, because just as it looked like it had hit it’s target something suddenly appeared in Musica’s hand and the end of Lucy’s whip was wrapped around a silver spear. 

_Is he a ex-quip mage?_ Natsu wondered, his dragon slayer eyes the only reason he could catch what had happened. Musica’s hand had reached for his necklace and in the same moment, his necklace had seemingly melted then solidified into a spear. But no, that wasn’t it. Musica had magic power but no more than the average civilian, this was something else all together.

Lucy didn’t look surprised by his actions but her eyes did draw to his used-to-be-a necklace curiously. “That’s not the same necklace.”

“No,” the two Fairy Tail mages were taken back by how soft his voice was. It made Lucy shift, feeling something inside her respond to his tone. It was Natsu uneasy. “It was a gift. From a friend.”

He said _friend,_ the same way Erza said Jellal’s name, Lucy noted. Full of sadness and longing—a love that had never been, and would never—could never—be.

“Who was she?” Lucy asked after a moment of tense silence. Natsu noticed the way her grip slackened on her whip. Natsu knew the battle had been decided. He couldn’t help but feel a little cheated, it wasn’t often he got to see Lucy angry and go all out against an opponent.

“Reina,” the words were little more than a sigh. 

The spikes of Lucy’s whip laid down flat against the leather again, and in the same moment it was coiled back at her side. A second later, Musica’s spear was a necklace again. There was a tired weariness in Lucy’s eyes when she spoke, “I told you in the letter I didn’t want to see you Musica. I don’t forgive you.”

“I wanted to tell you the whole story about what happened that day,” again, he was ignoring her, bulldozing right over her. Then again what did she expect? That was who he was. 

“And why _now?_ Why after _so damn long?”_ Lucy shook her head, she didn’t want to see him. She didn’t want to see any of them ever again, it was a selfish and stupid wish she knew. After all, _she_ was the one that reached out first. “How did you even know where I was?”

“Because it wasn’t until recently I even knew where you were Lucy,” Musica took a slow step forward, gauging her reaction, and when she didn’t attack him, he took another step. “Your guild’s gaining a reputation but it wasn’t until one of the guys read an interview with Mirajane, that we realized you were here. You’re very good at covering your tracks Star Girl.”

There was a twinkle of shallow amusement in his voice as he stopped just a mere foot from her. Her heart wrenched painfully at the nickname, a reminder of more—not peaceful but—simpler times.

“I learned from the best,” Lucy’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. “You know how I felt about you—” her eyes skittered away for a moment “—about _all of you._ And you guys just...left me.”

Natsu got the impression that when she said _you,_ it wasn’t just a slip of her tongue. It was something important, it meant something different from _all of you._ It made Natsu’s chest tight.

“We thought you had gotten away safe,” Musica sighed as he crossed his arms. “It wasn’t until a few days later and you hadn’t stopped by we realized something was wrong. By than you had already disappeared.”

“Three days,” Lucy said. “Three days I spent in that damn jail cell, waiting for you guys to come and rescue me. Do you know I felt when I realized you guys weren’t coming?”

Musica winced, not bothering to hide his reaction. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry isn’t good enough,” Musica winced again. Lucy continued, “You know what they said in there? They told me that you guys had abandoned me. They told me you guys had been captured and was pinning the entire thing on me. It’s lucky for me those officers were too stupid to keep their story straight, I would have never escaped otherwise.”

“Why didn’t you come back?”

“To what? A gang that I was sure had sold me out? To a gang that had left me behind to rot in jail? I may have only been 10 back than but I wasn’t stupid either.”

Natsu’s mouth fell open, _ten?_ They had left behind a _ten year old Lucy in jail?_ Oh he was really going to kill the Silver Rhythm Gang now, whoever the hell those fuckers were. 

“We came back for you Lucy!” Musica exploded, than softer. “We came back for you Star Girl.”

“And by then it was too late. Just like you always are,” there was a bite in her voice that Natsu hadn’t expected. The full body flinch from Musica hurt even Natsu. He didn’t know what those words meant but it was a clear soft spot. 

“I said what I wanted to say,” Musica sighed, than he leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Lucy. He whispered something in her ear that was too low for even Natsu’s ears to catch from so far away. Lucy’s body language didn’t give away indication on what he had said, staying rigid and distanced. Musica leaned back and gently tucked a strand of blonde hair behind Lucy’s ear, Natsu didn’t miss the way her eyelids fluttered just the tiniest bit, or how she leaned ever so slightly into his touch. There it was again, that tight feeling in his chest. He fished something out of his pocket and Natsu tensed, ready to leap out in case he was going to attack Lucy. Instead he pressed a piece of paper into Lucy’s palm. He stared down at Lucy, something intense in his eyes that Natsu didn’t understand but made him squirm all same. “In case you ever want the full story. I’ll be in town for the rest of the week if you want to talk.”

When Musica finally left—in that slow, sure gait of his that really hadn’t changed even after nearly a decade—Lucy called out, “You can come out now Natsu.”

Natsu was by her side in a flash, he didn’t even have the decency to act embarrassed that she had caught him eavesdropping. Than again, what did she really expect? That was just who he was. “What the hell was that Lucy? Who is he? What does he want? What did you mean by _jail?”_

“Natsu,” Lucy cut him off before he could ramble more. The pink haired boy shut up immediately. She rolled her answers over in her head, testing them on her tongue, trying to figure just how much she wanted to give out before she realized who she was speaking to. Natsu. Her _family._ She sighed, ungracefully falling to the ground, she leaned back on her hands as she stared up at the sky. Natsu took the seat next to her, his every sense tuned into her. “His name is Hamrio Musica, he’s not from around here. And by here, I don’t mean Magnolia. He’s not from _Fiore,_ he comes to Fiore every now and then. Sometimes he stays for a few years, sometimes just a few weeks. I met him a few months after…” Lucy trailed off, only two people in the guild knew her entire story, Master and Mest. It wasn’t as if she was _hiding_ her past but there were so many gaps in what she knew, it felt wrong to tell him when she _herself_ didn’t even know the full story. “—these boys cornered me in an ally and he helped me out. I thought he was a mage at first…”

“What exactly did he do? Before, with his necklace,” Natsu made a vague gesture to where Musica’s necklace had rested on his chest. 

“Ah that—” Lucy frowned lightly, a furrow on her brow that showed when she was thinking or confused about something, “—well he’s a silver-claimer. It’s...it’s a type of magic I guess but not quite. He’s not a mage, like you or me but his powers are very close. It’s a genetic trait that’s passed down, his family was one of the biggest weapons smith in the world. Until they all got slaughtered one night, now he’s the last Musica. And if he doesn't get it together and stop being such a playboy, the Musica line might die out with him. ”

It almost bothered him how easily Lucy talked about a massacre like it was nothing, he filed it away to think about later. “So what happened next?”

Lucy shrugged, “Nothing really. He asked if I wanted to hang with him and after a few weeks I learned that he was the leader of the Silver Rhythm Gang. Or well, I guess he was trying to _start_ the Silver Rhythm Gang.”

“What’s the Silver Rhythm Gang?”

Lucy paused, then she sighed. “I keep forgetting that they aren’t as well known on Fiore. At least not to civilians. These days they’re a pretty well known thieving gang. Back in the day though, they were just a bunch of street rats.” Lucy paused again. “I was his second in command because I was the first to join. It wasn’t long before he got other people to join though, Musica’s always been charismatic, and a born leader. People flock to him naturally.”

“You were a thief?” Natsu tried to imagine it. He sort of could but not really. Lucy’s morals were a lot looser than she liked to pretend—than a lot of people would have guessed—but still, Lucy stealing? He watched her, tracing the outline of her face with his eyes, listening closely to her heartbeat. It was steady, everything about her was steady like always. She was his rock, she always had been. 

“Yeah,” Lucy laughed. “I didn't do the actual stealing a lot of the time though, I was the distraction. People are suckers with little girls with teary doe eyes, the marks just ate it up. I did pickpocket a couple times though.”

“Sounds like fun?” Natsu hadn’t meant it to come out as a question but it was there now. He cracked his knuckles nervously. Gray was right. Lucy did have too many secrets. 

“Sometimes,” Lucy interlaced her fingers and stretched them above her head. Natsu’s sharp ears heard the _pop-pop-pop!_ of her spine.

“So what happened between you two?”

“Ah,” Lucy looked casual but Natsu knew better. The line of her shoulders were tense, her eyes were pinched, and she was too still. Fairy Tail members had a habit of rubbing off on each other, and one thing he noticed that had rubbed off on everyone was the _stillness_ right before an attack. Everyone—he had even caught himself doing it a couple times—went stock still when they perceived danger, as if they were gathering their energy to attack if need to. He wasn’t sure where it had come from but everyone caught the habit, sooner or later. “We were pulling off our first big heist, a bank that was rumored to be robbing their customers. We thought it was poetic you know? Rob the robbers. But of course, we were dumb and young. And I had the feeling for weeks that there was someone among our ranks with loose lips. At first it seemed everything was going smoothly but it went wrong pretty quickly, the alarms went off before were even halfway through, the authority responded so much faster than they should. In the panic we split off and I was caught.”

“How did you get out?”

“The town I was living in was corrupt and run by stupid and corrupt individuals,” her laugh was humorless. “It’s how we knew the rumors were right. The jail cells were old and over crowded, it wasn’t hard for a short, little girl to pass on unnoticed.”

Natsu was quiet for a good while and Lucy was happy to revel in this rare moment of silence. Her heart was beating normally but it still hurt, her brain was going a mile a minute and the silence let her put her thoughts in order. 

Once, when she was young, Lucy had believed she was in love with Musica. Maybe it was the fairy tale princess in her than—the same one that hadn’t really left even now—but she had really believed she knew what love was at 10, and had believed that was what she felt for Musica than. 

The Lucy now, 15 going on 16, who was stronger and older and wiser (but not by much) wasn’t so sure anymore. 

“What do you want to do about them?” Natsu asked suddenly. 

Lucy turned to look at him, tilting her head in question. “Huh?”

“What do you want us to do about them? Run them out of town? Beat them up? Just say the word Luce.”

“Natsu, what on Earthland are you talking about?”

“What do you want me, Fairy Tail, your team, whatever, to do about the Silver Rhythm Gang?” Understanding flooded Lucy’s system—warm as a hot bath during a cold day—as she stared into Natsu’s uncharacteristically serious face. He was asking her what she wanted to do. He was saying, in not so many words, that Fairy Tail was behind her, that however she decided to handle Musica they would back her up. 

One hundred percent. 

“Sit with me?” Lucy’s voice cracked. The note Musica had given her crinkled in her clenched fist. “I don’t want to be alone when I read this.”

Natsu’s eyes searched Lucy’s face and he nodded once. “Whatever you need Lucy.”

* * *

“So who was he Natsu?” Erza asked a few days later. No doubt she had seen—and heard the rumors about—the odd pierced boy walking about with Fairy Tail’s, so called, Lucky Lucy. 

“Someone she used to know.”

“A friend?” Gray was the one asking now, raising one eyebrow. 

“Friend might be stretching it,” Natsu shook his head. “Apparently they’ve got a complicated relationship.”

One, that he was pretty sure, wasn’t _his_ story to tell. Who knew what Lucy would do to him if he did. 

“How complicated?” Erza’s real question— _did they need to get involved?_

“I don’t know,” Natsu admitted, he had seen them together one day and while the air around them was obviously tense, Lucy didn’t look ready to rip his skin to ribbons with her whip either. 

“I say we get him drunk, strip him naked, and take blackmail photos,” Cana popped up, slinging an arm around Natsu around pulling him closer. He wrinkled her nose, smelling the booze on her breath. “Make sure he can’t mess with our girl.”

“How about we don’t?” Lucy rolled her eyes, strolling up to them. “You guys know how loud you are? I could hear you half a block away.”

“Sorry Lucy,” Cana simpered, bottom lip poking out in an exaggerated pout. Than she pounced on Lucy, fingers quickly pinching and dancing over Lucy’s skin. The blonde shrieked as she went down, screaming and laughing as she tried to swat Cana’s fingers away from her. 

No one commented on the brand new silver dagger tucked into her boot with a crest on the hilt peeking out.


End file.
